Speaking from experience at Home Depot, the color is rarely an exact match.
Speaking from experience at Home Depot, the color is rarely an exact match.
Speaking from experience here as well... when I was working on one of my models, I ran out of Duck Egg Blue from Testors and the store I bought my modeling supplies from closed down. So I took the tiny bit that was left, painted it onto a post-it note and went down to my Ace Hardware dealer. I expalined the situation to the gentleman there and he was also an avid builder and assured me that he could match any color I gave him. So he placed the sample on his new fangled little machine and it came up with a formula that he punched into a mixer and about 3 minutes later I had a whole quart of Duck Egg Blue. I was a bit skeptical at first and did a test on an unnoticable area of what I was working on, but when it dried, it was an exact match. I was so happy! It helps if you find someone at a store that understands what you are trying to acheive and that you're not there to get paint to do a room. I find that Satin is perfect for Flat colors. But I seal everything with a flat clear coat anyway. Either way, it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot and you never know, you may just end up finding a whole new source of hobby materials to use!erikstormtrooper said:
Made really good progress today on the tedious darkening process. 98% finished with right side (top and bottom) and about 75% finished all together.
Estimating another week or two, then on to windows.
I look forward to seeing this on display. hint hint
Here are some more recent shots. Hopefully, Brad can have some fun with the more blue shot, like he did last time...
Thanks guys. In these shots, the right half of the lower dome is finished being darkened.
If you look closely, you can see the difference between the left and right halves. But the left was already a tad darker than the right (before the darkening process), so it will take less time and work to match up.
Last edited by PHArchivist; Feb 22, 2011 at 9:17 AM.
By the way, we almost lost the dish entirely yesterday.
My brilliant but not-always-careful 11-year-old son hucked a softball-sized faux football at me (vinyl exterior shell, soft foam interior), missed me, and NAILED the Death Star about 6" to 8" to the left of the dish. Smacked the hull pretty hard...
So at this stage we can safely say that the battle station withstood its first frontal attack.
That is a great looking prop, amazing!
Ditto! that looks amazing!SteveNeill said:
Richard
Great~!
I can't make a discrimination between your build and movie prop.
thanks Eric.
Working away at it. Seeing light at the end of the tunnel for the darkening and finessing process.
I can't wait to see your ROTJ Death Star build
Just reviewing the thread...
Looks like it was early to mid November that I started finessing the grain. So its been about four months. But in that time I was also finishing the line patterns on the upper dome, and doing the dish.
I should be done with the grain in another couple of weeks. Lower dome may be done this week, except that I have a soccer game Saturday, and some crazy party to attend on Sunday!
Anyway, should be moving on to lights by the end of March (how many times have I mentioned moving on to lights?)...
Brotha, your commitment to this project is simply amazing. I'm enjoying the ride.
It's really amazing... but what are you going to do with it when you are done? I mean, it looks pretty big...
I am really liking the way its coming out. It is truly looking more and more like THE Death Star. In person, the darkening, finessing process is really bringing out the correct look. Though it is hard to convey the difference via photos.
Well, time to add to the list of those that have actively contributed to this build our very own Art Andrews.
Art and Kristen graciously spent time last night - in the cold misting rain, no less - setting up a full-on professional photo shoot of the model.
His images were specatacular.
Though, they did reveal a critical error on the model. As I have suspected, the detail pieces in my dish are too robust. With much thanks to Art, through photographing the model with professional lighting, I learned this becomes quite apprarent, and contributes to the "amateur model of a model" look.
Again, I have been suspecting this, but Art and Kristen's photos confirm it.
And as such, the images have been a catalyst to make a correction. I have the ability to sand down these too-thick detail pieces, and bring them in much closer to what they should be.
I beleive that this would otherwise been one of those just-subconscious elements that throw it off a bit from the original. Clearly, the devil is in the details, and this is yet one more detail that will congeal with everything else to bring home the right overal appearance.
The most robust detail pieces I have stand about 1.1mm or 1.2mm above the surface of the dish. In scale that would be about 70 to 80 feet high. I am sanding them down to about 0.5mm to 0.7mm. Or in scale 30 to 50 feet.
Here is a crop of Kristen's best shot, showing what I am referring to.
Wow, judging by that one single photo, I'm now dying to see the rest of what Art and Kristen came up with.
Now Rob, You make me laugh.
I was there too, and there are many great shots, and you pick the ONE that shows your DS in a slightly bad light.
I was lucky enough to be looking over Art's shoulder when shooting (although Kristen triggered the shutter on the money shot), and over Rob's shoulder when we reviewed the shots. Rob was flipping back and forth between his DS and shots of the real one from 77 and there were a number of times I guessed wrong on which we were looking at. Gave me goose bumps.
This thing is awesome. Rob release that last pic!!!
BrianM
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